Companies hoping to build autonomous marine robots—and those at the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard hoping to use them—are toiling to make sure unmanned boats will be able to sail the seas safely.

Most Read

If the idea of unmanned aircraft tracking targets from above is unsettling, imagine how a future Chinese or Iranian submarine captain could feel at being hunted by a robot ship on the surface.

That's the idea behind the Pentagon's Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel, or ACTUV. The program, run by DARPA, awarded the company SAIC the contract to build a prototype submarine-hunting ship. Officials say construction of the 130-foot surface vessel will begin soon. ACTUV will be able to travel the seas and locate quiet diesel electric subs without direct human guidance, an ability that puts it at the forefront of maritime robotic tech. "The specification is to have full autonomy," says SAIC's chief engineer on the project, Gregory Vaughn. "The major thing here is that it will be self-deployable."

As with robots on land and in the air, putting autonomy into marine machines can multiply their usefulness. Vessels without people can stay out at sea longer, weigh less, and go faster. Autonomous bots are better than remote-controlled ones because they are not left vulnerable when opponents or the operating environment jams communication. There is also an inherent savings in operating robots that don't require remote control except while maneuvering in and out of ports.

But there are hurdles that a robot must clear before it's allowed into the world unsupervised. "Rules, regulations and legislation governing the safe operation at sea of unmanned maritime vehicles are virtually nonexistent," says Jens-Olof Lindh, unmanned surface vessel program manager with the German firm Thyssen-Krupp.

The main fear is that autonomous ships will run into things—people and other vehicles. It's the same issue holding back the deployment of other drones: Ground vehicles have made decent progress in autonomy, but autonomous aircraft are running into delays amid concerns that sense-and-avoid programming would not reliably avoid collisions. The FAA must approve all hardware and software, a regulatory hurdle that will consume time and money.

Marine bots must also learn and adapt to the hard-and-fast rules of the sea that are internationally recognized under the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (COLREGS). This is a system of flags and lights that allows one ship to see and understand the position and direction of another ship. The language of the rules was (obviously) written for humans, using the vision of lookouts, radar readings, and VHF radio communication to keep boats safe.

The U.S. Navy and Coast Guard both are trying to get ahead of the issue and ensure that the robotics industry is building its seagoing bots with these rules in mind. "If we develop best practices, we will succeed where our colleagues in the air have struggled," says George Detweiler, marine transport specialist for the U.S. Coast Guard.

It's hard to judge how they're doing at this early point in the process. Industry types fear that the effort to approve autonomous marine robots will meet the same resistance that plagues unmanned aircraft, where UAV-makers face skeptical federal aviation authorities demanding complex technical specifications to (hopefully) avoid accidents.

"There's been a lot of progress on how to move forward," Capt. Duane Ashton, program manager of unmanned maritime systems for the U.S. Navy, told attendees at a recent robotics conference, just before admitting that an April meeting ended with a punt: a declaration to "continue discussion with industry and Navy."

Chad Hawthorne, supervisor of the automated reasoning section at Johns Hopkins University, says: "Fifteen years from now we'll look back and see exponential growth in the number of hours unmanned maritime systems are used." Hawthorne pleads with anyone who'll listen to have the rules written in a way that encompasses emerging technology and not just the current crop of remotely controlled robots. "Let's not make the COLREGS so that they preclude the use of autonomous systems," he says. "At least let's not tie our hands behind our backs."

Incredible machines are just waiting for the go-ahead. If the rules are not in place, ACTUV may be the smartest ship that never set sail.